At Fortress Capital there is an understanding that the wide and diverging landscape of alternative investments makes professional experience and excellence extremely valuable.

Fortress Capital offers our diverse clientele the professional know-how and specialized expertise required in analyzing, building and handling robust investment solutions. It is our philosophy to position our clients on an even playing field whether or not they are an institution or an Individual trader.

There is a substantial high and unlimited level of risk of loss in trading commodity futures, options, options writing and off-exchange foreign currency products; such trading is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Commentary

It was a very tough 2014 year for commodity traders. It was a hard hit for Those who concentrate their efforts in coal and other energy-related assets — the coal industry, as measured by the Market Vectors Coal ETF (KOL), dropped nearly 22% through Dec. 22. Aanalysis below shows that the downtrend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Looking at the two-year chart, you can see that the bears sent the price of the ETF below a key level of long-term support in late September. The break below the support of the channel pattern suggests that the period of consolidation is over and that the long-term downtrend is set to continue.

To make matters worse for the bulls, the bearish crossover between the 50-day and 200-day moving averages is a common long-term sell signal that will likely stoke the downward momentum. Traders will also use bounce off the 50-day moving average (red arrow) and crossover of the MACD and its trigger line (red circle) as confirmation of the move lower. The combination of sell signals and bearish chart pattern suggests that the bulls will want to steer clear of the coal industry in early 2015 and probably want to remain on the sidelines until the indicators suggest that the downtrend is over.

Market Vectors Coal ETF (KOL)

There is a substantial high and unlimited level of risk of loss in trading commodity futures, options, options writing and off-exchange foreign currency products; such trading is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.